A scream. That's what woke me up.

The first thing I thought was that it was Stiles having another nightmare, but this time, his scream sounded much worse than what it usually did. I should have been exhausted from the lack of sleep, but the moment I heard Stiles scream, I was throwing the covers off of me and running out of my room and down the hall to his room.

When I threw the door open, I was startled at what I saw. Stiles was still screaming, but his hands were gripping the sheets as his knuckles turned white. It was a terrifying sight to see, and to see something like this happening to Stiles made it so much worse.

His eyes say it all: pain, horror, and most importantly, fear. I pause in the doorway for a moment to take in the sight, but when I realized how bad this nightmare must have been, I ran forwards to help him. His screams and shouts continue to echo throughout the house as I grab his shoulders first, trying to keep him still.

"No!" he screams at me, but he wasn't talking to me. He continues to claw his hands up my arms as if he needed help, so I tried to get a better grip on him by holding his arms still. "The door-"

"Stiles," I say slowly, trying to calm him down. "Listen, okay? You're not dreaming anymore. This is real. I'm real."

He shakes his head, still clearly losing his mind. "No, no. This isn't real. I'm still not awake. Wake up!"

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know where John was, but I had a feeling that he was coming. My heart aches as I pull Stiles close to me, trying to figure out something to do that would make him realize that he was awake. His hands go from my arms to my shirt then as he bundles a handful of it into his hands, clasping on as he cried onto me.

"It was so real," he breathes, finally starting to calm down. I hated seeing him cry. "Scott was there, Lydia was there..."

"Stiles?" I hear a voice say from the doorway then, causing me to look back and see John standing there. He appeared tired, but just like me, after hearing Stiles scream, it woke both of us up in a snap.

Stiles' eyes look up then, causing his grip on me to loosen. In just a few seconds, John was by the bed and wrapping his arms around his son as I backed away, not really knowing what to do. This has been going on now for the past couple of weeks, and I still wasn't sure exactly how to comfort someone after a nightmare.

"It's okay now," I hear John say as I watch the two of them hug, trying to calm one another down. I could tell that Stiles was okay now, only just a little upset about his nightmare. I wanted to ask what he saw this time, but I knew it was the wrong time. It was always the wrong time.

After a couple of minutes, Stiles looks back up at me, nodding his head in a thankful type of way. I knew that he was glad that I tried to comfort him, even though I was terrible when it came to comforting people.

"I can stay in here if you want," I say, thinking out loud. John and Stiles both look at me, waiting for one of them to say something.

Stiles sniffles before shaking his head. "I'm okay now. Thank you though, Corey. I-I think I'm okay."

"Okay," I nod, taking a step backwards before stopping in the doorway. "I'm headed back to bed."

"Goodnight," Stiles forces a smile, but it pained me more to see him forcing it. Stiles was usually the person who made others smile; not the one who could barely smile himself.

As I started to walk back down the hallway to my room, I couldn't help but wonder why Stiles suddenly got all of these nightmares. I mean, I know that sacrificing ourselves left a dark part of us, but I haven't even noticed anything wrong with me other than the weird glances of images I'd see when I looked into the mirror or at a reflection. Stiles got the worst out of the three of us, and it wasn't fair.

I couldn't help but glance at my alarm clock next to my bed, it reading 3:34 a.m., meaning that school was in less than four hours. A groan forms under my breath as I flop back into bed, my mind spinning with a thousand different things. It amazed me that even this early in the morning, my mind still didn't want to stop from thinking about every single thing that I could.

I wasn't laying there for long before my door was creaking open, causing me to lift my head and see John walk in. He closes the door behind him as I push myself up off of the bed to where I'm sitting up, my eyes watching him closely as he sat down on the foot of my bed. He looked as if he needed to talk to me about something serious, and I was willing to bet that it was about Stiles.

"I might be new to this supernatural reality that you kids are apart of, but I do know that whatever is happening to my son isn't normal," he states, despair in his eyes. I wanted to tell him that it was going to be alright, but I couldn't guarantee him that. "What exactly did he get himself into to save me?"

I take a deep breath, not really sure where to start. "In order to find you guys, three of us had to of been sacrificed. So, that's what Scott, Stiles, and I did. Deaton warned us that a darkness would be around our hearts, but if I knew that that would have done this to Stiles, I would have found another way."

John sighs as he looks down onto my bed, his eyes dark and tired. "Do you think it will ever stop?"

"With time," I say, trying to find some positivity out of this, but there wasn't much to go by. I wasn't sure if time would help, but it was the only thing I could say.

"What about you?" he asks then, looking back up. "Have you been having nightmares?"

I shake my head. "It affected each of us differently. Allison told me that Scott was having troubles controlling himself, Stiles has been having the nightmares, and for me...well, I was the lucky one I guess. There's just these instances where I swear I see something that shouldn't be there, but it might just be my mind playing tricks on me."

He nods his head solemnly. "Well, thank you. You've always been there for Stiles."

"He's my friend," I smile faintly. "Of course I'm going to always be there for him."

John smiles then, the first real smile I've seen on his face in awhile. He pats the bedspread beside him before standing then, walking to the door and pulling it open. "Get some sleep; it's late."

He leaves my room then as I sigh, knowing that he was right. I didn't want to sleep though now that I was awake. I wanted to get up and do something, but I wasn't sure what I wanted that something to be. A yawn escapes my mouth anyways though, so I just decided to lay back down and try and close my eyelids long enough to where I could be granted sleep.

And surprisingly, I got my wish.

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"Corey's here!" Chris shouts back into the apartment as I stood in the doorway, waiting for Allison to appear. John had given me a new ride (by new I mean an old truck that was falling apart) and I wanted to drive Allison to school. Oh, and don't worry. I had taken my drivers test again and passed, so it's legal.

Chris leaves the door then as he walks back into another room, causing me to walk inside myself and shut the door behind me. My eyes trail along the walls as I head towards Allison's room, staring at the photos hanging there. There was one of the three of them; Chris, Allison, and her mom, and then the other one beside it was just Allison and her father. It was one of those things that depressed you to look at.

"You look at those every time you walk in here," I hear Allison say, causing me to look over and see her standing there in her doorway. She was wearing a teal shirt that had black hearts all over it in a certain pattern and she had on a dark blue skirt. It was different from her normal style, but she looked good.

I try and play it off. "I know. I like looking at how much you've changed. I mean, look at your hair."

Allison closes the door to her bedroom as she walks over and stands beside me, staring back at the photo of her and her father. It takes her a moment to look at it and to realize that it was just her and her father before she smiles faintly, resting her head on my shoulder.

"I miss my longer hair," she fades out, sighing. "Although, I will admit, having it shorter is a lot easier to take care of."

I run my fingers through it. "As long as I can still run my fingers through it, I won't complain."

She laughs softly then, making me smile at her. "Stop it, you're making me tired."

I continue to do it, making her hum. "Can we please just ditch school today?"

"Ditch school today and I'll skin you both alive," I hear Chris call from one of the rooms, making Allison laugh under her breath.

Allison finally lifts her head off of my shoulder, my fingers falling from her hair and back down to my side. "We won't dad; we're just joking!"

"Mmhm," Chris grumbles before Allison is grabbing her bag from the table in the hall, sliding it onto her shoulder before taking my hand and leading me to the door.

"Bye Dad!" she shouts before we're out of the room and in the elevator, heading back downstairs to the lobby. Before long, we're walking out of the building and standing in front of the truck I had gotten, Allison stopping in her tracks when she saw it.

"This is your new truck?" she says, pointing at it with confusion. "I thought you said that it was new?"

"New to me," I shrug, looking back at it. I mean, it wasn't horrible I guess. It was better than Stiles' Jeep, that's for sure. It was a 2003 Ford black truck, which was probably better looking back in 2003, but now it was just sort of falling apart. It reminded me of my truck I had before driving it off of the bridge, but that one at least had better working brakes.

Allison shakes her head. "You sure you don't want to take my car?"

I would have rather taken hers, but I wasn't going to tell her that. "Oh come on, it's not that bad. Can't I just drive you one day to school? One day-that's all I'm asking."

Allison sighs before walking forwards. "Alright."

The corners of my mouth stretch upwards slightly before I'm walking around the other side and getting into the drivers seat, the door creaking as I slammed it shut. Allison hops into the passenger side as she slips her bag off and places it onto the floor, reaching over and putting on her seatbelt as well.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" she asks me again, and I wondered why at first why she was asking me that. It took me a moment to realize that what she had meant was if I was okay driving a similar looking truck that I had drove when I had died.

I nod my head. "I'm okay. It's not the first time I've drove it."

Her eyes go back to the road as I pull out of the parking space, hearing it cackle just like Stiles' Jeep, but I didn't mind. I was already used to the sound. We sit in silence for a moment before something pops into my head.

"It happened again," I say, taking a left turn. Allison looks at me then, and I knew that she already knew what I was talking about, but I said it again anyways. "It was worse this time though. You just have to see it for yourself Allison...his face is pure horror. It makes me wonder what's going on inside of his head and what he dreams about."

"Was it about the gauze man again?" Allison says, her eyes showing hurt. She cared for Stiles just like I did.

I grip the steering wheel, an odd feeling washing over me. "Yeah. He said something about the door too."

"The door?" Allison furrows her eyebrows. "Like the bedroom door?"

"I guess so," I say, shaking my head. "I just hate waking up in the middle of the night hearing him screaming in agony. It makes me wish that that was me, not him. He doesn't deserve that."

Allison grabs my hand. "No one deserves it. Are you sure though that it didn't affect you at all?"

I shake my head. "I'm fine besides the not seeing the future thing. I'm not having any nightmares or losing control like Scott."

"It makes me wonder if whatever happened to you hasn't happened yet," Allison thinks out loud. It made me nervous. "Maybe you did get off the hook though; I just find it odd."

"I feel it though," I say, my eyes drifting from the road for a second. "That darkness Deaton had mentioned...I feel it every day. It's something I can't pinpoint, but it's there."

Allison's hand grips my hand tighter as she lays her head back onto the seat. "What does it feel like?"

"Hollow," I breathe, thinking about it too much. "It's empty; like a dull ache."

"I'm sorry I made you do that," she says, shaking her head. "I shouldn't have made you go under that night-"

"I wanted to," I say, making sure she didn't feel guilty about this. "Even if you tried to stop me, I would have done it anyways. Just like how I tried to stop you when you brought me back."

Allison smiles ever so faintly. "Okay, you have a good point. Actually..."

She fades out. "What?"

"When I had went under and came back, I didn't have that darkness that Deaton had talked about," she says, sitting up farther in her seat. "But I did have those nightmares about Jade."

I remembered that alright. I remembered waking up that night after getting back from the Motel and hearing Allison screaming and kicking. She was just like Stiles if not worse; she thought that I was a monster. She was so terrified. That was the night I almost lost her for good; it would never leave my mind.

"They stopped though," she says slowly. "I mean, I don't get them anymore at all. Maybe that's proof that eventually it will stop, right? With time."

"I guess we'll just have to wait and see," I say, my eyes trailing from her back to the road. But when I looked back, everything around me had changed. We were no longer driving through the woods headed to Beacon Hills High, but instead, we were driving over the bridge that night that I had wrecked my truck.

Everything happened so fast. Suddenly, headlights were shining in my eyes just like they had that night and I was throwing the wheel to the left. I hear my name echo around in my head, but it didn't stick. The truck rumbles under me as it screeches against the asphalt, heading straight for the river waiting below. It wasn't until we made contact with the side of the bridge that everything around me changed yet again.

"Corey!"

My eyes flick to where Jade should have been sitting, but instead it was Allison again. She was leaned forwards grabbing the wheel as the truck swerved out of control, heading straight for the ditch. My mind worked fast as I slammed on the breaks, hearing the tires spin under us. It took a good five seconds before the truck finally stopped, leaving me breathless and more confused than ever.

Allison's hair was over her face before she brushed it out of the way, looking at me with confusion and a hint of worry. I tried to speak, but my mouth just hung open, waiting for words to come. The truck was still on the road, Allison was okay, we were okay. Everything was okay, but it wasn't at the same time.

"Maybe I didn't get off the hook after all."

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yay first chapter! how was it?

oh, and ps, I plan to have lots of storey in this book (Stiles and Corey lmao) I need more of their bromance. they are just too asdjfdj

have any predictions/hopes for this book? I'd love to hear them (:

vote n comment!